Three Authors You Couldn't Live Without

Karen at Aust Crime Fiction has listed the Three Authors She Couldn’t Live Without, an idea she pinched from David J Montgomery at Crime Fiction Blog who borrowed it from elsewhere. At the end Karen asked others to pick up the challenge so what the hell.

Now this is going to seem to be flying in the face of the subject of my own blog, but my number 1 and 2 favourite authors are not Australian.

Dennis Lehane. I’m still mourning the end of the Kenzie and Gennaro series and occasionally go back to re-read the books. Mystic River made up for the loss somewhat, though.

George Pelecanos. Gritty, tough and nothing at all held back, Pelecanos gets down into the sleaziest, drug riddled parts of Washington DC hitting the mark time and again with scene depiction and use of language. I’ve enjoyed the work these two have done on The Wire, too, by the way.

Chris Womersley. I’m a big fan of noir fiction and Chris’ debut novel, The Low Road is exactly the kind of desolate story that my warp mind really appreciates. I’m waiting with the hope that he will see his way clear to write another similarly dark and moody tale.

So there you go folks, challenge acknowledged and met. Anyone else out there with authors they'd like to bestow their praise upon?

July '08 - New Releases

July heralds the release of 4 much anticipated Australian books. When I say “much anticipated” I am naturally referring to my own eagerness to read these new books. The 4 books I have details of are by authors who have already established themselves as fine storytellers (my opinion). To categorise the books I would put them down as 1 action thriller, 1 mystery and 2 psychological thrillers.

Hard Rain by David Rollins (pub. Pan Macmillan) This is the 3rd book in the Vin Cooper series and is set in Istanbul, Turkey. Cooper is a US Air Force OSI Special Agent and he and his partner Anna Masters have been called in to investigate the murder of the Air Force Attache in Turkey. This story fires straight out of the blocks, features all of Vin Cooper’s acerbic wit and is blessed with a consistently high action level. Find out more at David's website.

Bright Air by Barry Maitland (pub. Allen & Unwin) Maitland is most well known as the author of the superb Brock and Kolla police procedural series. Bright Air is a departure from the series, his first stand-alone mystery set in Australia – Sydney and Lord Howe Island. The death of Lucy Corcoran, at first thought to be a tragic rock-climbing accident could be something more sinister. Friends of Lucy, Josh and Anna are compelled by their personal feelings of guilt to seek out the truth. Excellent character-based mystery. Find out more at Barry's website.

Voodoo Doll by Leah Giarratano (pub. Random House) Sydney police detective Jill Jackson is back after the harrowing events of Vodka Doesn’t Freeze. She has been promoted and moved to Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west to be part of a taskforce charged with tracking down a gang of violent home invaders. Jill Jackson would have to be one of the most complex, troubled protagonists I have come across and her personality gives this book even greater interest.

Splinter by Michael MacConnell (pub. Hachette Australia) FBI agent Sarah Reilly is working on a child homicide case. It’s high profile and harrowing but it’s also a case that turns nasty. As with Michael MacConnell’s first thriller, Maelstrom, Sarah is facing a case that is far bigger than it first appears. She also has to face memories of events from her own past which are brought back in the course of the investigation.

Currently Reading Bright Air by Barry Maitland

Barry Maitland’s new novel, Bright Air (pub. Allen & Unwin) has been released today, an event certainly worth noting. It’s even more noteworthy when you learn that this is a stand-alone novel, not part of the immensely popular Brock and Kolla series. On top of that, the story is set in Sydney as opposed to the series books which are set in England.

I am almost exactly halfway through reading Bright Air at the moment and would classify it as one of those mystery novels that is very careful in the build up. Maitland has put a lot of effort into setting the scene for us. It feels as though the reader is being prepared for a shocking revelation – just my own impression, mind you.

Here’s a brief overview to give you an idea of what the plot’s about. The opening finds us at the home of Josh Ambler. Josh has recently returned from London where he worked for a few years as a merchant banker. He is visited by a friend from his past. Anna was one of a group of friends he knew from his university days, all with a passion for rock-climbing. Josh took up the sport as a way of meeting Anna’s friend, Lucy or Luce as she was known to all. They wound up dating and became very close until Josh broke it off and moved to London.

While Josh was in London Luce died in a climbing accident on Lord Howe Island while doing a field study for her university degree. With her at the time were some of the members of their circle of friends: Owen, Curtis, Damien and Marcus. The coroner’s report found that her death was an accident but her body was never recovered.

The reason that Anna has come to see Josh is because two more members of the party, Owen and Curtis, have also died, also in a climbing accident. Before he died Owen revealed to Anna that there was more to Luce’s death than what the coroner concluded. What he actually said to Anna was, “We killed her.”

Now Anna has come to enlist Josh in finding out what really happened on Lord Howe Island.

The story switches from the present day and Josh and Anna’s progress to the early days of their relationship and their rock-climbing experiences together. The personalities of all of the members of the group are gradually revealed, as are the details of what happened between Josh and Luce.

Barry Maitland writes with a strong, fulfilling style that commands your attention. The rock-climbing sequences provide an added interest but it’s the depth of the character portraits where the real strength to the story lies. There are also some moving instances of self-awareness that creeps into Josh’s narrative as he looks back on his time with Luce.

When I thought about it, I was amazed to realise how totally insulated my life had been from this world until I’d started climbing with Luce. Nature to me had been no more than a marginal risk of hurricanes or floods that could be managed with a range of financial instruments. I had only ever seen true wilderness through the filter of a TV screen or an aeroplane window. And now I was about as fully exposed to it as one could be, suspended in a gossamer net high up a mountain face in bright air.

Half the book to go and I am fully engaged, as I find I often am while reading a Barry Maitland novel. Sure, I’ve made some guesses about which way I think the story’s going to go – good stories compel you to do just that, I reckon. But I’ll keep those guesses to myself.

Genre Flash 2

The start of the year introduced Australia to Genre Flash, a publication showcasing some of the latest hot new release crime novels and true crime books. It's six months down the track and the second Genre Flash has just been released.

This issue is 14 pages strong and highlights books such as Fan Mail by P.D. Martin, The Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece by Robin Bowles, Alibi by Sydney Bauer, Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry and Harum Scarum by Felicity Young to name just a few.

Genre Flash is filled to the brim with quality Australian books to track down and come complete with story overviews, added author information, details on where to find the books and a list of upcoming novels from the featured authors.

Take a look at Genre Flash 2 to help satisfy the longing to read an Austalian book today.

David Rollins - The Vin Cooper Series

With the impending release of Hard Rain by David Rollins I thought I might quickly backtrack and remember 2 of his earlier books.

Hard Rain (published by Macmillan Australia) is the third book in the Vin Cooper series, the other 2 books being The Death Trust and A Knife Edge. Vin is a major in the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations, or as he puts it an internal affairs cop. Vin Cooper has the very entertaining habit of turning on the wisecracks whenever he feels as though he is on the back foot. He wisecracks a lot.

Special Agent Vin Cooper was introduced in The Death Trust. In that book he investigated the death of General Abraham Scott in a glider accident in Germany. Two things were made quickly apparent, Cooper is a damn fine investigator and a major pain in the ass for just about every person he comes in contact with.

It's on this first investigation that he meets Special Agent Anna Masters and they form a stormy partnership that would carry over into A Knife Edge.

A Knife Edge takes place largely on US soil with a series of shocking deaths of military personnel. A shark attack, a terrorist attack in San Francisco and a parachuting accident are linked together to set up a wild foray into the unfriendly highlands of Pakistan.

Both The Death Trust and A Knife Edge are high quality, fast-paced action thrillers that feature one of the more easy-to-identify-with characters that I have come across. Speaking personally, both of these books left me looking forward to another episode.

Vin Cooper and Anna Masters are back in Hard Rain, this time they're in Istanbul, Turkey for a hellish investigation into the death of the US Air Attache to Turkey, Colonel Emmet Portman. Making the job an even more uncomfortable one is that Anna has recently become engaged and Vin is far from happy. And he's the kind of guy who expresses his displeasure in a very distinctive way.

By the way, a discussion about the Vin Cooper series would not be complete without a mention of Nelson Demille's series featuring John Corey (I've made this comparison before). There are a number of Vin Cooper's characteristics that certainly reminds me of John Corey and this alone should send you sprinting to the bookstore to get your copies of all of the Vin Cooper books.

Look forward to getting your hands on Hard Rain which will be released early in July.

CWA Dagger Nominations 2008

The CWA Dagger Award shortlists have been announced. Once again Michael Robotham has managed to get himself nominated, or at least, his book SHATTER was nominated on his behalf.

The full list is as follows:

THE DUNCAN LAWRIE INTERNATIONAL DAGGER

Andrea Camilleri, THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER (Picador)
Stieg Larsson, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Quercus)
Dominique Manotti, LORAINE CONNECTION (Arcadia)
Martin Suter, A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL (Arcadia)
Fred Vargas, THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK (Harvill Secker)

IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

Mo Hayder, RITUAL (Transworld)
Gregg Hurwitz, I SEE YOU (Little, Brown)
Michael Robotham, SHATTER (Little, Brown)
Tom Rob Smith, CHILD 44 (Simon & Schuster)
David Stone, THE ECHELON VENDETTA (Penguin)

THE JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER

Zoe Ferraris, THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ (Little, Brown)
Elena Forbes, DIE WITH ME (Quercus)
Caro Ramsay, ABSOLUTION (Penguin)
Matt Rees, THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS (Atlantic Books)
Tom Rob Smith, CHILD 44 (Simon & Schuster)

THE DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY

Elizabeth Corley
Andrew Martin
Denise Mina
Craig Russell
CJ Sansom
Chris Simms

THE DEBUT DAGGER

Amer Anwar (UK) - Western Fringes
Belinda Bauer (UK) - Blacklands
Russell Colman (Canada) - Desert Storm
Peter Dewar (UK) - The Eclipse of Lilith
Bill Harrison (Canada) - Nite Lite
Alison Marlow (UK) - The Stench of Lilies
James Oswald (UK) - The Book of Souls
Susan Schaab (USA) - Wearing the Spider
Ian Simpson (UK) - Devils and Disciples
PJ Watson (USA) - All the Wrong People

THE GOLD DAGGER FOR NON FICTION

Kester Apsden, NATIONALITY: WOG (Jonathan Cape)
Francisco Goldman, THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER (Atlantic Books)
David Rose, VIOLATION (HarperPress)
Duncan Staff, THE LOST BOY (Bantam Press)
Kate Summerscale, THE SUSPICIONS OF DR WHICHER (Bloomsbury)
Peter Zimonjic, INTO THE DARKNESS (Vintage Books)

THE SHORT STORY DAGGER

Robert Barnard, "Provenance" (from THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH MYSTERIES)
Michael Connelly, "One Dollar Jackpot" (from DEAD MAN'S HAND)
Martin Edwards, "The Bookbinder's Apprentice (from THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST BRITISH MYSTERIES)
Laura Lippman, "One True Love" (from BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2007)
Danuta Reah, "Glazed" (from GETTING EVEN: REVENGE STORIES)

Well done to all the nominees but, of course, here's to Michael picking up the Steel Dagger.

The awards will be announced on July 10.